Monthly Archives: February 2006

Pectus Update: I Hate Sleeping On My Back

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I’m lacking in photo’s to post, due in large part to a serious lack of time during good photographing hours to take pictures because I’m busy getting ready to leave the country, taking care of details that accumulated while in the hospital, and dealing with church business (something I rather enjoy).

Why am I starting off a post about my Pectus Surgery like this? Well, *shrug*, because I’m in a rambling mood. And I feel guilty for breaking my promise to post photos every day. Oh well, there must be content, and Sean wants to know how things are going, and because the rest of the world is probably curious, or at least some of you are because I’m getting search engine referrals for my previous two pectus articles (Pop Goes the Sternum! or How I Had My Pectus Excavatum Corrected, the Aftermath and The Pectus Journey: Before and After (photos)), I thought posting the update here would be a good place.

So, two paragraphs in and I’m finally getting to the point. ;) It has been approximately 4.5 weeks since my surgery. I mentioned earlier that I acquired a cough the week I got out of the hospital, the cough being the sickness of choice this winter, the one going around. I still have said cough, though it does seem to be clearing up, though not quickly. It is possible the reason for that is in part due to my surgery, simply because anesthesia and major trauma have a tendency to put a damper on the immune system, and mine was not real healthy to begin with.

Now for some vital statistics, I still can’t sleep comfortably on my sides. This is more of a mental aggravation than a physical one. I sleep most comfortably on my side, and sleeping has been difficult because the only safe position for me is on my back.

Speaking of which, my back is killing me. You see, when they insert the half inch steel bar beneath your rib cage, they make a two inch incision just beneath your pectoral muscles (that is, they do this if they are performing the Nuss procedure). It just so happens that the 6th nerve running from your spinal cord around the rib cage to the sternum is positioned just beneath the pectoral muscle. It also happens that the 6th nerve starts just in the middle of your shoulder blade.

Getting back to my back, trust me, this is going somewhere. So this nerve is in a bad place. Now, the incision on the right side is longer than the left because that incision is where they insert the bar, and because the right side is where the three inch cross bar is inserted to anchor the bar and to prevent it from flipping. The right side of the chest therefore undergoes a lot more trauma than the left, and because of the cross bar and larger incision, the 6th nerve that runs right in the middle of all this mess gets highly aggravated.

Speaking of aggravated, that is just what happened to the muscle that runs behind my right shoulder blade and on down to about the middle of my back. Very aggravated. You see, since my surgery that muscle has been knotted. Last Tuesday I did something to make it angrier than it already was, and I woke up Wednesday unable to bend much in any direction without severe pain shooting around that nerve causing the nerve endings to communicate a feeling that I would describe as someone taking a sharp object and stabbing my in my sternum. ;)

After much pain medication and a lot of pain, I managed to stretch the offending muscle out enough to get it back to normal levels of pain and knottiness. I expect that when the incisions heal completely, and the scar tissue that forms around the bar to hold it in place is finished growing, the muscle will unbind completely. Till then, I have trouble sitting. Standing is ok, walking is better, but nothing feels as good as lying flat on my back. A position I was in most of last Thursday and Friday, because I spent the whole of both days working that way with my laptop on my knees, unable to sit up for more than a few minutes before succumbing to pain.

Today was a much better day though. I woke up feeling pretty good. The muscle in my back was looser than it has been since surgery, and the pectoral muscles around the incision were feeling very good. I am, for the most part, off the Percocet, though I still take it sporadically when I do something to offend the tenderer parts of my physiology. I find that two pills make me pleasantly drowsy, though not enough to make me sleep without consent. I’m actually much sharper mentally when on the drug, partly I think, because the narcotic loosens me up, much like caffeine does when it causes the release of dopamine and adrenaline. One pill is hardly noticeable.

Other observations: the cough has made breathing difficult. I thing the cough is more the culprit than anything else. I will note that the bar is more restrictive than I had anticipated. I expect I won’t be able to breathe quite as deep or as easily till the bar is removed. This won’t affect my health, and isn’t a concern for me, as I consider the restriction temporary. I can say that aside from the breathing difficulties due to the cough, I do feel better.

It used to be that every day, walking, sitting or sleeping, there was a constant heavy, slightly painful feeling that resided in my solar plexus, just beneath my sternum. That heavy feeling is gone. Also, my ribs beneath my pectus are starting to bend back down like normal. Usually, they stuck out, forming the other half of the bowl. Its good for morale to see my chest starting to look normal, and to be able to look in a mirror and see the torso of a well formed masculine physique. I jest of course. … Well, not really. ;)

I’ll leave you with a few thoughts about travelling. I’m going to Ireland in a couple weeks, where I will be taking a lot of photos, getting to see castles, cliffs, and ancient ruins. I’m dreading the 13 hours of flying and waiting in airports. I’m hoping the next week and a half will see a decent amount of improvement in my stamina and back. Currently, I hit a pretty big wall of fatigue about 2:00 to 4:00 in the afternoon. Walking isn’t much of a problem, but carrying anything substantial is hard, and walking up hill brings me out of breath much faster than I am used to. This is mostly due to this blasted cough, so if you will pray that I may be better by my trip, I would be grateful. I don’t want the flights to be excruciating, so more strength in my back would also be a great boon.

Ok, a long enough post. I promise that I will resume a normal flow of photos, the occasional poem, and hopefully will continue posting writing soon. I am getting caught up with things, and am looking forward to a delightful spring and a long summer filled with not much of anything beyond my normal pursuits.

Thanks for listening,
 

God as a Person, not a Concept

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Through the course of living and relating to God, God teaches you things. Lately, He has been teaching me about Himself, teaching me to view Him as a Person not a Concept. In the course of this post I’d like to try and explain why this concept is important to me, and some of the impact it has on life as a Christian.

The principle is that you have to approach your relationship with God much like you approach relationships with other people. It is a concept I knew but didn’t, and still don’t to some degree, fully understand. When you relate to God as a person, obedience becomes something you do for Him, because you want Him to be pleased with it, and because the sacrifice is pleasant because it’s for Him.

I’ve experienced that kind of feeling when doing things for people I care about, giving gifts, doing favors. Many times, especially in the recent past, with God, obeying Him felt like something I was doing for me, as a way of improving my character or becoming a better person. And so, when my feelings would change, obedience would become less important, because the motivation for obedience had become self improvement, not pleasing someone I loved, in this case God.

God (though not all the time since I’ve known Him) sometimes feels more like a concept I hold than a person I Know. With people there is mystery, hidden parts of them to discover, unknowns. The unknowns are important because they give rise to hope. Hope in new pleasures to be had with someone, new things to learn about them, new ways to share and demonstrate affection and love. I can plan a gift and enjoy the giving, partly because I know the likes and dislikes of the person, but partly because I’m not sure how much they will like it. The anticipation of a person’s response is important, and can’t be had without mystery. Concepts hold little mystery, but people hold much mystery, because People change, they grow, they add knowledge and experience to who they are.

Though God doesn’t change, there is still mystery, because the depth of His Personhood is so great, no man could ever hope to plumb it in a lifetime.

So I have been struggling to turn my concept of God into a Person, and in the process of doing that, it became harder to live with sin and it became harder to continue the kind of relationship I currently had with him. So I became pensive, because as God became more of a person in my mind, I wanted to talk to Him less and less, knowing I was walking on His feelings. This, in a weird way, is actually a good thing, because a wall is breaking, and now I’m feeling consequences I hadn’t felt before.

There now exists a battle in my soul, the kind spoken of by Paul in Romans 7. Like Paul, there is no doubt in my mind which side will win. I should note that the battle existed before, but always there existed a lie, that I could play both sides, and the consequences wouldn’t be too great to bear. The pain of existing in my previous state of tension was not great enough to demand change. I could maintain a relationship with God that was nominal, and still sin some, and the emotional consequence of that was bearable, at least, it was less painful to bear than the effort required leaving the sin completely.

Now, the pain of continuing hurts more, the battle is more distinct. The value of God, and having Him as a friend I know and relate to, like I sometimes relate to my roommate, or sometimes relate to my father, or pastor, or brother. Knowing my actions impact His feelings, provides a strong reason to act, to obey, to give Him presents, to make my loyalty and devotion evident.

Concepts provide no such reasons, no such motivations.

 

The Pectus Journey: Before and After (photos)

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Finally I have photos for you to see. I also saw the doctor yesterday for my first post-op appointment. Everything looked good and I’ll see him again in two months. He told me I could start jogging again, but I think that is a little ambitious.

In my last post on this subject I left off just after coming home from the hospital. I stayed a week at the Spilgers home because my apartment is bereft of a recliner and sleeping on a bed at that time was a painful experience.

Things were pretty tender the first few days. Getting around was delicate. I couldn’t bend much, and I found that putting my socks on was the most difficult part of getting dressed.

Percocet was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it did a great job of dulling the pain and making me feel comfortable. On the other, being comfortable put me in just the right kind of mood and things seemed funnier than usual. Laughing was a painful experience. Sneezing was far worse. My first sneeze occured on thursday, and I spent a full 5 minutes recovering from the shock of angry muscle tissue and bone.

I found that I noticed improvement every other day or so. I gained a little bit more range, could bend a little farther, pick up light objects with a little less pain and so on.

I ran a slight fever, about 1 or so degree above normal the first week. That eventually tapered off. On friday I tried sleeping on the couch, propped up by pillows, which worked pretty well.

I came home to my apartment sunday. And stopped taking Percocet during the day on tuesday, using it only at night. I managed to pick up the cough that has been making the rounds here in Saint Louis the week before. Fortunately, Percocet acts as an anti-tussive (cough suppressant), and I didn’t feel it much till I stopped taking the Percocet during the day. I started sleeping flat on my back a couple days ago. Let me tell ya, the human body isn’t designed to rest in a propped up position. Sleeping flat has helped emmensely.

I found that most of the pain I was feeling wasn’t from the incisions directly, but stemmed from the knotted up muscles around the incision. The knots are caused by the trauma from the cut in the muscle they made for the bar. The right side hurts the most because the incision is wider and because there is a 2.5 inch bar that runs perpendicular to the main bar and prevents it from turning and adds extra stability. I finally saw my x-ray’s. The bar is about a 1/5 inch wide and about a 1/4 inch thick.

As of today, approximately 3 weeks after the surgery, I feel pretty good. Still some pain and stiffness, but a lot more mobility than last week. I’m told the majority of the pain and stiffness will be gone in another 3 weeks. If I can rid myself of this cough, I’ll probably feel a lot better.

Ok, now for the photos:


Before:

After:

Before/After:


Before/After:


The photos were taken with different cameras, so you’ll notice some difference in framing and focal length, but I think they suffice to show the difference. 

The Proposal

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Thus falls the evening dust
To sparkle in the starlight
Enchantment fills the very air
Bound up in every dendrite

Excitement racing through my flesh
An arcane type of passion
Deep within my soul is felt
In mystifying fashion

Abundant strands like silken thread
Reflect the ghostly gloaming
And fall like water down her back
Dark as ink and soft as downing

Probing eyes look out at me
Beneath the thick black lashes
The gaze a gently pressing force
Felt on my racing senses

Into the limpid pools I fell
Such soft and dulcet beauty!
With her forever I could dwell
In this enchanted story

Reaching forth to touch her hand
I make my proposition
And as I kiss her finger tips
She whispers her assention

A Note On The Proposal

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In case you were wondering, no, I’m not engaged. The Proposal was the product of a fit of inspiration that grew out of my fascination with a mental image of a crystal clear autumn dusk in a small grassy dell beneath a large picturesque tree. In the air, falling like snowflakes, were small gauzy points of light. The word dentrites sprung to mind when I thought how to describe them. The scene was supposed to be electrifying.

I wrote the first two verses trying to describe the scene then got stuck. I asked a friend if I should go up or down and she said down. I began exploring ideas that had to do with the physical and the excitement a guy might feel just before he proposes came to mind as I explored the idea of romance. Had my friend recommended I go up I would have sought a heavenly or spiritual experience. Who knows what might have come of it. 

Dr. Guimon Needs Your Prayers

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For those of you who know Dr. Guimon and aren’t aware of the current situation, I thought a brief post here might help to spread the word that he needs prayer.

Several weeks ago he had valve replacement surgery to correct a heart problem sustained during cancer treatements when he was a teenager. The sugery was a success, but during his recovery he began having problems with his kidneys and lungs.

As of today what I know is that he has pneumonia in both lungs, and has contracted Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) which is a very serious problem in the lungs, having to do with air sacs becoming more rigid and fluid building up.

Last night his heart stopped twice for reasons unknown to the dr’s. Right now he is on dialysis. His kidneys are working but no where near what they need to be doing. The hope is that giving him the dialysis several times over the next days will help cleanse his body enough for them to see marked improvement in his health.

Dr. Guimon indicated yesterday that he believes he will live through this, and that he is in God’s will, but he needs your prayers and God’s working on his behalf to see this through.

For those of you who do not know Dr. Guimon, he is the missionary I visited in Uganda earlier this year and also 3 years ago. Dr. Guimon has been building an orphanage and a church in Soroti for the last several years. I’ve known Dr. Guimon for almost ten years. He was a professor at my college when I first attended, and is a member of my church.

Best Regards, 

Update: I recieved news at 11:30pm that Dr. Guimon passed away a few hours ago. Your prayers for his family, especially his wife Debbie and son Matthew are coveted.

Very Brief Hiatus

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I’m sorta busy with getting the details of my life sorted through since I’ve been away for a couple weeks. Until I can clear the back log and can carry my laptop home again, the blog will be put on hold. Shouldn’t last for more than a week, but I wanted everyone to know.

Thanks,
Jason Wall 

Elegance in Theology – the Underlying Principles of the Christian System

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(The following is an introduction to a much larger collection of essays I have been writing off and on for the past few years, and thus leaves much of the meat of what I introduce left unsaid. Keep in mind also that I’m not writing to my blog audience here. The following should be read as though I were speaking to a church congregation. Thanks.)

In the circles I run in, there is a man who is greatly admired by most, and who has achieved a large amount of respect. This man has built his reputation on a credo widely adopted in my industry. His name is Larry Wall, and as far as I know any relation between us is distant. ;) Larry Wall is a programmer and a Christian, and is the inventor of the PERL programming language.

Now, Larry Wall will tell you that the three chief attributes of a great programmer are, are you ready for this, "Impatience", "Laziness", and "Hubris". You are probably thinking I’m a nut, or that he’s a nut, and you might be right, at least on the latter point. ;) But his creed has merit. Bear with me now, because I have a reason for this long and winding introduction.

What I want to communicate to you today is something foundational to the way I myself perceive the world. I consider this truth I want you to understand to be vital to my faith. And in order to communicate this truth, I want you to understand how I came to know it.

Which brings me back to Larry. Now, at the heart of every good hacker, down deep inside every good engineer, Impatience, Laziness, and Hubris reside. Each of these character traits are traits to be avoided in any good man’s heart. But in the context of Larry Wall’s humor and sense of irony, here is what he means. When a person/engineer/developer/troubleshooter is presented with a problem he needs to be impatient enough to be discontent with it, not so much that if the problem is insurmountable he can’t live with it, but a good programmer is not content to live with solvable problems. Secondly, he must be lazy enough to want to avoid having to deal with repetitive tasks and problems, i.e. if possible he will want to avoid inefficiency. And thirdly, a good programmer has to have enough hubris to believe that he is capable of solving the problem.

Its a mindset, a way of looking at the world that constantly questions whether this is the most efficient way of doing things. Incidentally, homeschoolers are a great breeding ground for this kind of hubris. What Larry Wall is trying to say is that a good programmer is confident, efficient, and motivated, and is constantly looking for ways to make things more elegant (this means simpler, easier, and faster).

Keeping this in mind, I look at theology this way. All my life, growing up, it has been my nature to look for the underlying principle of things. I do this because I’m lazy and impatient. I don’t have time to memorize a million rules, nor do I have enough determination to understand all the details of any particular situation I may encounter. I understood from an early age that the best way to survive and learn and grow is to understand the basic principles of things, and that way, when I come across unknown situations, I simply derive the right response from the principles.

This method of understanding allows me to have a huge amount of potential knowledge contained in just a few simple statements. This is a method often used in the sciences. The vast majority of chemistry is based on a set of just a few principles that govern the reactions of basic elements. In math there are a small number, comparatively, of theorems and rules that govern the way everything works.

From discipline to discipline, across all the sciences, this is true. And here is one of the basic principles of life, complex systems are usually composed and created by the interactions of a small set of elements. Computers do everything they do with just 1′s and 0′s. All of Human life and biology are written with an alphabet of only four letters. And the whole of God’s law and the exhortations, rebukes, writings and preaching of the prophets of Israel can be simplified in two concise commandments, to Love God with our whole selves, and to Love our neighbors as ourselves.

Foundations and principles of Christian living. My knowledge of these is small (in my own estimation). But to the degree I can I want to communicate to you the smallest set of concepts that govern the whole of Christianity. This subset is Faith, Love, Humility, Hope, and a Sound Mind. I firmly believe that if a baby christian was given just these concepts and was told to practice, if he did he would grow up into the very model of what a Christian should be.